medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Thursday, January 31, 2008, at 7:39 am, Frans van Liere wrote:
>
> I am posting this question for a friend:
>
> "I am working on a seventh century Hebrew apocalyptic that was perhaps
> written in Syria, the Sefer Zerubavel and particularly interested in
> two of its figures: Hephzibah, the mother of the messiah who has
> redemptive and military powers of her own and her sinister
> counterpart, a marble statue that has sex with the devil and gives
> birth to the Antichrist Armilus. I am looking for stories of the
> Virgin Mary or women martyrs fighting off demons or real-life enemies.
> Any help would be greatly appreciated."
>
Apart from the already mentioned Marina/Margaret of Antioch and Juliana "of Nicomedia" (a Campanian saint with a legendary Passio set in Nicomedia), I can't at the moment think of any woman martyrs who do fight off demons or real-life enemies (unless Joan of Arc counts -- but the enemies she fought were those of France). Thecla when confronted by the forces of evil is a passive saint who is always protected by the God in whom she believes and whose aid she beseeches. When set upon by would-be rapists she did not fight them but instead, in an eighteenth-century translation anticipating Monty Python's Bold Sir Robin, "bravely fled" into a crack opened to receive her in the rock wall of her mountain hermitage:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/thecla.html
Similarly, Aurelia and Neomasia (BHL 817m), though severely beaten by their Muslim captors, are not said to fight them. A providential thunderstorm allows these saints to escape.
Again, Arthellais (BHL 719-720) when captured by brigands and jailed with their connivance does not physically resist her persecutors (who are instead slain by Jesus when he comes to rescue her).
Similarly passive non-martyrs physically assaulted by demons are the fifteenth-century saints Colette and Francesca of Rome.
Best,
John Dillon
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